Tag Archives: s05e11

Poland! Perfect… we’ll agree to protect them, and maybe they’ll repay us in the future with reasonably-priced builders…

For one last time, the show bounces back with the traditional series-ending leave-’em-wanting-more episode… or in this case, leaving the viewer terribly grateful it’s going away soon before it has a chance to spoil. Yep, still trying to tell myself that, and sometimes it even works.

In this episode:

Song: Australia — Martha recounts the famously Horrible antedecents of everyone’s favourite sunshine-intensive barbie-shrimp-slippers, with help from Simon and Ben… but not, surprisingly enough, from the wildlife. (Parody of: Kylie Minogue, feat Can’t Get You Out of My Head and I Should Be So Lucky)

Recurring sketches:

DI Sergeant Bones: Historical Crime Road Traffic Accident Squad — The Bikers and the Baffling Velocipede (“You mean to tell me you ride around on this thing with four wheels, two seats, a drawing board and a sunshade, but no brakes?!” “Why, yes!” “…Note to self: I. Quit. That’s it. I’m gonna write that novel.”)

Historical Apprentice — Team Maximus and Team Minimus vie to create and exploit a celebrity gladiator in some very creative ways… and discover that where gladiators are concerned, it’s possible to get a bit too creative. (“Can I just say, ‘man -vs- beast’ was actually his idea?” “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean a tiger, did I? I meant like a badger or something!”)

DVD set — Winston Churchill: Britain’s Wittiest Man (Britain’s wartime genius is also a comedy genius.Yes, really! “A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you–fails–and then asks you not to kill him!”)

One-offs:

Vile Victorians

New! My Little Pit Pony — Less with the sparky rainbow friendships, more with the grinding labour and choking toxic dust… and it fits perfectly in its special Coal Mine playset! (“Careful, Lily dear, you don’t want your My Little Pit Pony to get hurt in a rockfall, or an explosion in the mine!” “Don’t be silly, Mummy! …That’s just what happens to pit ponies!”)

Awful Egyptians

Don’t Tell the Corpse — Even before they got to the Land of the Dead, Egyptian funeral planning involved approximately fifty-seven zillion small details. (“At the top end, you can have the deceased’s intestines removed by a professional embalmer; and at the bottom end–so to speak–we can have his guts dissolved with the injection of cedar oil. You know, right up the–” “Yeah, thank you…”)

Hieroglabble — It’s the word-based board game that’s fun for the whole literate priesthood only! Warning: Hieroglyph combinations may take years to learn. “And coming soon, new Advanced Hieroglabble, with all the glyphs from the later Greco-Roman period–meaning you can play with up to 5,000 tiles!” “We’re gonna need a bigger board…!”

Gorgeous Georgians

Pity Port Jackson — The arrival of a British relief fleet on the shores of the first Australian colony only complicates the question of who’s meant to be relieving who. (“Well, we’ve got to sort this out, man! Without food supplies, more people are going to die!” “*erghkkk* *thud*” “My point exactly!”)

Woeful Second World War

Neville Chamberlain Online — The Historical Desktop sketches literally go out with a bang, as the beleaguered architect of ‘peace for our time’ (#humblebrag) logs on to discover just how temporary it’s going to be… (“What’s this, then? ‘InvasionAdviser.com review of Czechoslovakia by AHITLER33’… OK, no need to panic, Neville; a lot of these invasion reviews are fake…”)

Measly Middle Ages

Great Historical Country Walks — The Norman conquerors’ subsequent ‘harrowing’ of the Northern countryside wasn’t nearly as pleasant as it sounds… unless you’re really, really into homonym-type puns. And even then, sort of disturbing. (“OK, so York is over there, by that massive bonfire… wait a minute, I think York is that massive bonfire…!”)

Sophisticated As — In which the new post-1066 fad for French words elevates dinner-party small talk into entirely new realms of awkward. (“Is there any more pig?” “Oh, really, Laurence! Zut alors!”)

Field Notes:

Damnit, they’ve done it again. For one last time, the show has pulled off its neat and nifty trick of immediately following up a disappointing episode with one of such clever, insinuating charm you’re fully reminded why you started watching in the first place.

And it gets worse… that is to say better, except the part about being, y’know, Episode 11 of Series 5. Because it also fully honours the tradition of ending each series with a further flourish of all the things that make it most endearing. Basically the sketch-comedy equivalent of a cliffhanger, designed to make you realise not only exactly what you’re going to miss but just how much. Now, I don’t want to actually accuse the producers of setting up this next-to-last-ever episode with that in mind as well–they’re usually not that sadistic unless Mat’s particular charms are concerned, and—

*looks down sketch list* …Oh, crud.

So yeah, as a side-effect of serving as the prose finale (the producers perhaps realising, correctly, that in the literal final episode all anybody would be anticipating was the song) this episode collates the remnants of the casting experiment that gave S4 so much of its peculiarly sweet, vivid appeal: namely, Let’s Throw Baynton Over the Top and Film What He Finds on the Other Side. How sniffle-worthy it is to rediscover that particular meme at this late date will of course be dependent on how fond you are of Ol’Minstrel Eyes in particular; for me, it makes it very poignant indeed.

I think I’ve made it clear throughout this project that I have great affection for every member of the starring cast; but having also spent the same project dropping hints will formally admit here, where it seems to be appropriate, that Mat is far and away the only one whose departure would’ve made me reconsider watching altogether. Although the thought of losing Larry, Jim or Simon has at various times also made me twitch noticeably. Also sometimes Ben, usually when he’s onscreen with Jim or Simon. And Martha, in WWII mode… oh, and that whole Boudicca deal… Well, hell, it never did happen (and I suspect I only brought it up in the first place to delay the inevitable) so let’s move on.

Should anyone accuse me of waxing melodramatic about the above production motives re: rebounding or anything else, however, may I just point out that the very first thing the viewer is confronted with here is Baynton as DI—or whatever–Bones lolloping up to an accident scene making siren noises… then being pitched right to the outer edge of his Leslie Nielsen by Jim and Dominique as scatterbrained Victorian lovers. In the course of which he’s both literally and figuratively blown away by a [magically intact, but hey] parasol. Rebound nothing; I don’t think the show has pulled off this level of pure comic joy since Baynton as the Victorian HParamedic imitated a tapeworm.

Even making allowances for the usual attention paid to the Victorian bits, the dour DI—or whatever–in fact gets a more elaborately thought-through sendoff than pretty much any other of the show’s recurring stalwarts, up to and including Death and the Shouty Man (yes, if anybody’s wondering, I still have dibs on that band name). To the extent that someone was actually commissioned to execute a fully recognizable, detailed pencil portrait of Jim–which I do hope they gave him to take home–rather than resorting to either generic daisies or a gag copy of the Mona Lisa. Between which and the earlier papier-mache elephant, the gallant-to-the-last f/x team is definitely owed a bow.

Someone evidently really, really believes in this whole concept of melodramatic Mat as an *ahem* vehicle for police drama satire, is what I am saying here. And on the off-chance they occasionally Google their audience’s reaction, I would just like to not only offer them a hug of full validation, but once again throw out the suggestion that the material (also likely the performers) are available and the format beyond perfect for an ongoing standalone series of shorts. Trust me, I’ve had the Kickstarter copy written long since.

In other clearly-I’ve-been-a-really-good-fan-this-year news, the Historical Desktops also get a joyously worthy sendoff. Featuring not only the return of Jim’s Churchill (who finally gets to really show off that famous wit) but the full redemption of Prime Minister Simon, so badly wasted last ep. That single little #humblebrag hashtag, in that moment, is as absolutely perfect a bit of comedy as the show has ever produced.

Really, the whole thing is almost painfully wonderful, to the point where, as usual with these bits, it’s difficult to coherently explain why. All I know is, favourite sketch hell, it just officially became my Favourite Satirical Concept Ever. So many juicy comedic threads intertwined so cleverly, character, plot and matching reference, and never a false step; in fact, the skill level actually keeps climbing as each sketch progresses, and the best part is you can never tell what form it’ll take next, because it’s mostly in the tiny throwaway asides. Here, for instance: that pic of Dali on RateMyTache.com… “Have you tried our sister site, RateMySide-Whiskers.com?”… Churchill bragging about having ‘the top score on Minesweeper in the Foreign Office’…

….and as the sprinkles on the top of the sundae of endearingness, the mummy judge makes a triumphant comeback on Stupid Deaths! I have no idea why I should be so ridiculously happy about this, but come to think of it, let the fact that I am stand as an appropriate final testament to just how much sheer engaging the show has achieved with this segment.

In particular this is another massively satisfying old-style SD, even if the death, once again, is much more unfortunate than genuinely idiotic. Evidently—and rather interestingly–aware of this, Mat contributes a performance that fully manages to salvage Pliny’s dignity while still fulfilling all the requirements of the surreal silliness.

Speaking of salvage, the show has also finally righted the HApprentice ship, producing a segment that’s decently clever re: both satire and subject. If the funny’s still not quite hitting the lavishly witty heights of last series, it’s at least back to not involving charts. In their place are some really genuine side pleasures, including more hilariously sweet “isn’t this all just so much fun?!” from Greg, more vamping from Simon, more intriguingly grrrl-powered Martha, and of course more cringing amoral schmuck Larry. Funny how I don’t mind Rickard whingeing in the slightest, but when Lawry does it… well, Lawry isn’t otherwise in this delightful final wrapup episode at all, as it happens, and we’ll just leave it at that.

There is however one last nicely sophisticated use of the Hadland crazy-eyed brittleness, or crazy brittle-eyed-ness, or whatever it is. Having never previously heard of Abigail’s Party, of which fandom agrees the Norman dinner party bit is supposed to be a piss-take, my viewing notes here continue “… nice ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’-esque tension she and Larry set up, anyway.”

Ordinarily I’m not a fan of novelty naming, but the ‘Laurence’ conceit is for once actually reasonably novel, and in fact has me musing over other notably missed boats in that line. Matthew Arnold, anyone? Martha Washington? Benjamin Franklin? Simon Bolivar? James… pretty much every other male born in Western Europe from 1700-1956?

Meanwhile, in all the kerfuffle over Sarah and the bald cap, it further occurs to me that something should be said for the almost equally inexplicable “stick Jim in a Dutch-bob wig to indicate exotic antiquity” trope, which makes a typically non-sequitur appearance in the Egyptian funeral sketch, alongside its (slightly more understandable) cousin ‘Mat in artfully disheveled shoulder-length tresses’. I dunno, I just have much more trouble imagining either as the go-to ‘do for the happening historically accurate North African male than as the go-to method of keeping the makeup team amused.

Anyway, one of the few longform sketches of S5 pays off handsomely regardless, in terms both of a satisfyingly logical, detailed followup to last series’ ‘Duat’ bit and allowing Baynton and Howick one last surreal romp together. They’re the one intra-troupe pairing that right to the end I’ve never known what to expect; save that, as here, it will be both gloriously and uniquely adorable.

Up to and including, in this case, Mat’s accent I have no idea what it is, and don’t want to know, because frankly that’d spoil everything… oh, and the gestures, can’t forget those. Altogether, assuming he’s not actually mimicking someone specific, this is one of the single best characters he’s ever created for the series–perfectly skimming his own unique line between irresistibly childlike silliness and razor-sharp adult satire.

Also, somewhere in there he and Simon throw out a small celebration of the show’s decision to finally cover some Australian history, in the form of finding time to pull off a freakishly expert mimicry routine. The technical term for the amount of rehearsal required to achieve the apparent offhand ease with which they speak in unison in the Port Jackson sketch is “one hell of a lot.”

In tandem with Simon’s reliably thick-headed bureaucratic schtick (which the writers are still enjoying as much as ever) this just about makes me not amazed that this much creative effort would be invested in a slight throwaway bit that doesn’t even have the side bonus of making Ben miserable… um, depending on how closely he was paying attention the day they taught ‘falling’ in drama class.

It’s altogether funny, really, how Australia of all civilizations has been so thoroughly overlooked in the HH canon up til now. The sketches about a country founded literally as a side-effect of punishing people who stole handkerchiefs and impersonated Egyptians (per Bill Bryson) seem like they’d pretty much write themselves. I’d been assuming the lack of same was the result of the notorious Aussie sensitivity to what they term the ‘stain’ of their convict heritage, except we now have a whole entire song crammed in here in a clear effort to make up for lost time.

And it is… well, as a prelude I should mention that Kylie Minogue is known in N.America primarily as “that Loco-Motion remake girl”, and that when this song was first aired surprise at learning she was still relevant anywhere sent me to Wikipedia. Where I was chastened, but not all that enlightened. Except inasmuch as that it’s clearly an apt (if not actually obvious) parody match, and definitely a nice step up, sophistication-wise, from the relentlessly banal adherence to novelty of our previous entry. Martha contributes her usual effective vocal, and the songwriting does an excellent job of playing peppy plastic synthpop off relentlessly earthy reality–quite a nice sharpish touch about it, really, if you listen closely enough.

That proved a bit difficult, on account of the video having some uncharacteristically severe problems with holding my interest. When your biggest visual achievement–in support of a song set in one of the most famously charismatic ecosystems on the planet–is speculating whether Ben losing his hat was accidental or not… yeah, a biggish boat got missed somewhere, and I don’t think it contained Egyptian impersonators this time. What’s left is I suppose charming enough, depending on your appreciation for a behatted Benjamin; but overall much more reminiscent of the first-series musical ethos than the last.

There’s also the rather uncharacteristically glib little swipe at the Aborigines, that appears to have much more to do with the chance at a winking reference (the general conviction that bare namedropping = cute enough to kiss these last couple of eps is rather worryingly suggestive of songwriter burnout) than any type of desire to convey the reality of early colonist/native relations–again, a touchy subject, and not really suited for indepth comedy treatment, but let us just say the latter likely have a much different perspective on who turned out to be the ‘bad neighbors’.

It looks especially odd alongside the effortlessly snarky My Little Pit Pony business. Which turns out to be everything sweetly and slyly subversive that the earlier Spartan Girl advert should have been, starting with the pitch-perfect logo art, and delights me exceedingly in consequence. The more so because I have no particular investment in the parody subject; I think I must’ve been born without the ‘little girls=love ponies’ gene. Thus am all the more free to enjoy how this sketch skewers the moral blindness of the Victorian upper-middle-class more effectively in thirty seconds than in the entirety of last series’ uber-elaborate Wife Swap.

I also like the snarkiness of country-walking Martha trying to switch gears upon encountering rampant horrific death and destruction, except she’s wearing a pink puffer jacket. Altogether it’s one of the niftier throwaway bits of the series, although y’know, honestly, maybe it’s different in the UK, but when I hear ‘harrowing’ my first thought is the more disturbing meaning.

There’s likewise a lot of pop-cult parody goodness to be had in the Heiroglabble advert, which admirably maintains the board-game spoofs’ gentle-but-multidirectional satire right to the end, and throws a rather surprisingly low-key final cameo from Deary into the bargain. On the other hand, there is Simon, who in his relentless quest to find something unique in every character he has ever been given has finally been driven to pulling out his Death voice and hoping that nobody recognizes it without the makeup. Pretty darn effective in the moment, mind you (especially when combined with the ongoing ‘random Jaws homage’ thingy), but still… one more little sign that they all gave it up just in time.

95% Accu-rat:

Right, so velocipedes. Actually the collective name for all human-powered wheeled vehicles (the term itself comes from the Latin for ‘fast foot’). Of which the bicycle is one, and the more outlandish ‘quadracycle’ shown here another. There were and are also, of course, unicycles, tricycles and something called a dicycle, wherein the two wheels are side-by-side rather than sequential. All of them went through endless permutations beginning in the early nineteenth century, as inventors vied not only to come up with more sophisticated pedaling mechanisms but, seemingly, new ways to cull the thrill-seeking herd.

Nobody tell poor Bones, but he encountered one of the more stable setups all told. By contrast, Darwin probably heartily endorsed the original ‘bicycle’, the famous (if in reality very short-lived) penny-farthing, which left the rider wobbling on a tiny saddle atop an enormous front wheel. As ludicrous as it seems now, the p-f was intended then as an improvement on the boneshaker, first developed in the late 1860’s and what children’s books of the period mean when the bratty rich kid brags about his ‘velocipede’.

The joke’s on him, see, because they got their common name from the harsh ride that resulted from the inflexible wrought-iron frame and wooden wheels. Thus the model we know and love, first introduced around 1880 or so, was initially called the ‘safety bicycle’… because it had a braking mechanism.

OK, Neville Chamberlain deservedly takes a ton of flak for the whole deeply unnecessary ‘peace in our time’ grandstanding, but let’s not crucify the poor guy just yet. More sympathetic revisionist historians have suggested that our Neville was a lot cannier than he traditionally gets credit for. After all, signing that treaty with Hitler did buy the erstwhile PM the time he needed to quietly get the UK on a proper war footing, without which, frankly, Churchill wouldn’t have had a nation to inspire in the first place. It’s only in hindsight that these boring backroom policy details get obscured by the whole, y’know, “YOU SIGNED A TREATY WITH #%@$%-ING HITLER?!” thing.

Meantime, over on the other side of the world: Australians, as noted just a little tetchy about the whole ‘originally a penal colony’ concept. The rest of the world, meanwhile, is all “Are you kidding? An entire country of badass thieves and murderers and stuff? That’s, like, so cool!“

Needless to say, the rest of the world is indulging in serious wishful thinking. These were not cunning master criminals; these were mostly hapless slum-bred pickpockets and drunks and tavern brawlers and (no, seriously) Egyptian impersonators and suchlike, precisely none of whom had any skills whatsoever that might help upon being plonked down on the other side of the world and told to recreate something resembling a civilised existence. The lovely (at least in hindsight) Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jacksonis available for the curious.

Short version: everybody got off the boat and immediately began randomly bumbling into such Colonisation 101 roadblocks as what to plant when and which end of a cow you get milk from (that’s assuming they could even find a cow, given that most of the herd promptly escaped into the wild on arrival) and how to store food supplies so bugs don’t get in and, um, whoops, bugs are good to eat, right?… all, it must be assumed, while coping with the native wildlife’s tendency to viciously murder them for no apparent reason. (Ohai, cute little cone-shaped shell just lying there on the beach! I think I’ll just pick you up and squeeze you and —OHGODOHGODTHEPAINOHGODMAKEITST… *erk*)

This is not even mentioning the native human population, who despite the song’s assertion were basically OK with and even seemingly amused by the palefaced newcomers… except for those occasional times when they also decided to viciously murder them for no apparent reason.

All this, as the sketch here indicates, was not doing wonderful things to the already-high stress levels of those stalwart representatives of Queen and Country tasked with reducing some type of order out of this inexplicably colourful chaos. They’d just unmasked the one convict who’d faked being a botanist in order to get special privileges (among various other similar scams), and here’s the Second Fleet shows up not with desperately needed supplies, but with plenty more of those damned convicts. So yeah, the original Australians: in the most literal sense, not happy campers.